A girl in a dark jacket rode farther back in the formation.
Not directly behind Luther anymore.
Slightly to one side.
Her own line.
Her own path.
Gregory stood beside Sky.
“Looks good.”
She wiped her face quickly.
“You’re not supposed to notice.”
“I’m old, not blind.”
Lucy approached carrying a folded black work apron.
Not a motorcycle-club vest.
Not club colors.
Not a membership patch.
An apron for the paint bay.
On the chest, someone had sewn a small custom patch.
SKY HOLLOWAY
ARTIST
Beneath it was a tiny jawbone-and-serpent design.
One black scale.
Sky touched it.
“Jimmy did this?”
Jimmy called from across the room:
“I outsourced the stitching.”
Gregory said:
“You’re not a member.”
Sky looked at him.
“I know.”
“You’re not riding a motorcycle until you’re old enough and properly licensed.”
Terry raised his mug.
“Thank you.”
Gregory continued.
“You’re not quitting school to paint tanks.”
Sky frowned.
“Negotiable.”
“No.”
“But.”
He held out the apron.
“You have a place here.”
Sky took it.
Gregory looked around the garage.
Then back at her.
“You don’t have to run tonight.”
Her face changed.
The words hit deeper than congratulations.
Gregory continued:
“You don’t have to run tomorrow.”
Sky gripped the apron.
“And if things get bad?”
“You tell someone.”
“What if nobody listens?”
“You tell another person.”
“And if they still don’t?”
“Another.”
She looked toward Lucy.
Jimmy.
Terry.
The others.
Gregory said:
“Running kept you alive for a while.”
He lowered his voice.
“But it doesn’t have to be your whole life.”
Sky nodded.
Then hugged him.
Gregory froze.
Every person in the garage watched.
Terry whispered:
“He has no idea what to do.”
Lucy elbowed him.
Gregory slowly put both arms around Sky.
Careful.
Awkward.
She held on tighter.
Nine years earlier, Gregory had helped bury Luther Holloway.
For years, he believed the last thing left of his friend was a photograph in the meeting room, a few painted tanks, an old patch, and stories repeated until memory softened their edges.
He had been wrong.
Part of Luther survived in a fourteen-year-old girl who could pull motion from a paintbrush and anger from a room simply by refusing to disappear.
But Lucy’s warning stayed with Gregory.
Sky was not Luther.
That became one of the most important lessons he learned.
She painted differently as the months passed.
At first, every design looked like her brother’s.
Same flames.
Same movement.
Same hidden black scale.
Jimmy encouraged her to experiment.
Sky resisted.
“This is our style.”
“Hollow’s style.”
“He taught me.”
“Exactly.”
Jimmy turned a helmet toward her.
“If he wanted a copy, he could’ve used carbon paper.”
Sky glared.
Jimmy continued.
“You know what Hollow told me the first time I copied one of his flames?”
“What?”
“He said, ‘Quit painting what I already painted.’”
Sky looked suspicious.
“Did he really?”
“No.”
She threw a rag at him.
Jimmy laughed.
“But he would have.”
Eventually she changed.
Her ravens became more geometric.